Created by Jenny Lumet & Alex Kurtzman
Starring Rebecca Breeds, Michael Cudlitz
Thursdays at 10PM on CBS

by Emily Maesar, Staff Writer

““I need you to know what your silence can do.”

When it’s discovered that Tyson Conway’s father is the founder and CEO of Alastor Pharmaceuticals, the drug company that conducted the trials that set off the entire conspiracy, Clarice goes back to question him (twice). While it presently doesn’t yield any fruit, Clarice’s empathy will surely give them answers in the episodes to come. 

What does yield fruit, though, is Clarke pumping a pharmaceutical rep he’s basically blackmailing for information on Reprisol, the drug that Karolina Savage took which led to her suicide in the last episode. He doesn’t get a lot out of her, other than learning the obscene amount of money she makes by pushing the drug… and the name of the woman who signs her checks from Alastor Pharmaceuticals: Julia Lawson.

Clarice and Esquivel go visit Julia at her home to ask her questions. She is unwilling to help at first, fearing for her career and the life she’s built with her roommate (read: her girlfriend) Erin. Until, that is, Julia gets two pieces of information. First, women are dead because of all of this. And second, the woman in front of Julia is Clarice Starling. She doesn’t help immediately, but when she finally comes around it’s deeply personal. It’s in part to tell Clarice that the Buffalo Bill case affected her life in an intense way. Julia is a trans woman, and Clarice’s silence when the media was demonizing Jame Gumb for their perceived trans identity continues to haunt Julia, making her fear for her life and safety. 

Meanwhile, the Black Coalition has decided to move forward and sue the FBI, using the treatment of Ardelia versus the treatment of Clarice after the cold case they solved, as proof of race-based wrongdoing by the agency and its members. Ardelia agrees to name Clarice, specifically, in the suit. Ardelia tells her this once Clarice gets home from the conversation with Julia. Clarice doesn’t take umbrage with the knowledge, though, because she recognizes now the unintentional harm her silence had led to and she’s aiming to make it right. 

Outside of the FBI and the conspiracy case, Catherine’s ex, from before she was taken by Buffalo Bill, calls her up to meet for dinner. Unable to leave, however, Bea ends up agreeing to take her to the dinner. At first, Catherine thinks her ex is trying to romance her again… but it becomes extremely clear that he’s not. Instead, he’s moved on and is looking for approval from Catherine to do so, even though he abandoned her after her kidnapping. Once she realizes this, she sticks up for herself and makes him leave her alone at the restaurant. But one powerful moment is followed by a panic attack and the inability to stand up from the table, until her mother appears and brings her home. However, with this new resolve Catherine seems intent on her original plan of paying the mother of Buffalo Bill a visit.

The plot of the episode aside, the biggest thing I want to talk about from this episode is the introduction of Julia Lawson. Julia is played by one of my favorite actresses: Jen Richards. She’s an out trans actress who has spoken loudly about how the character of Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs has affected her, both on a personal level and also generally as a trans woman.

This is something I’ve been very curious about how the show might handle–if it would handle it at all. The Buffalo Bill of it all was a major part of what I talked about back in February for my 30th anniversary piece on Silence. The net bad that surrounded Gumb’s character remains so inescapable. It festers and it’s replicated (with less humanity and care than by Demme in 1991) and it’s used to hurt and kill trans people, with a very specific emphasis on trans women. Because it doesn’t matter if Gumb was a trans character or not - the majority of the audience saw them that way and took that feeling (and everything associated with it) out into the real world. 

So, it’s immensely powerful to give space to a trans woman to not just voice that generally - but to very specifically say them to Clarice Starling, within the text. Jen Richards spoke in the Netflix documentary Disclosure about trans identity in film and television, and while the bit about Silence is short in comparison to the rest of the film, it’s a film worth watching. Generally, of course, but also for overall context for why this particular piece of metatextual conversation is important. Jen is currently slated for a three episode arc on Clarice (and was consulting on the show before being cast as Julia), so I’m so excited to see where the show takes her and her character. I highly recommend her interview with The Advocate for some extra reading. She’s truly a dream!